This is a coursework motivated post, with the aim of describing and analysing three different approaches to depicting figures/beings of my choosing (from a curated set).
The figure is an endlessly interesting subject for art, and as such has been subjected to seemingly endless treatments. As much as we may take an interest in the world around us, such is the condition of our self-obsession that we must seek to experience this world through the lenses and sensory inputs of other beings, even if those beings are merely figments of our imagination. The presence of the figure makes explicit what otherwise is only implicit: our relation to the external world.
For this post I'm interested in the depictions of figures by Antony Gormley, Christoph Niemann, and Robert Weaver.
A Few Thoughts on the Enlightenment
I took a visit to the British Museum and spent a good amount of time in the Enlightenment room. There one will find all manner of objects and books relating to the earliest period of the Museum's history, along with placards explaining and describing the thinking and knowledge of the time. There are weighty tomes sealed behind glass, some of which appear as though they might crumble if improperly handled, along with various scientific instruments, orrerys and collected artefacts from around the world. It very clearly creates the impression of a collection, as if some wealthy child grown tired of postage stamps had set out and gobbled up whatever he could find to catch his interest from the furthest reaches of the globe. What follows are a few jumbled thoughts of mine on this habit of collecting and the need to organise.
On Brutalism
Brutalist buildings are stark, dramatic, and austere. They are striking, stunning even. And how could they not be? Brutalist architecture exists not so much within its environment as it is opposed to it. It rejects the natural, replaces it with exacting artifice and confidently opposes all of the processes that made its own existence possible. The natural world is the natural enemy of brutalism, and by extension, so are humans.
Architecture
Architecture is the material actualization of a preferred system. It articulates how we feel the world ought to be. That it expresses a preference is a necessary consequence of its form: an architected form is a space transformed, a space replaced.
Orientation around Covent Garden and the West End
A lot of the places I was tasked with documenting were locations that would be relevant to illustration (art supply shops, galleries). Being plopped in the middle of Covent Garden I didn't exactly hit the ground running. When I first arrive in a place I find I'm not really ready to start seeking things out and constructing a mental model, rather first I aim to get a feel for things, to listen and let the place speak to me and then gradually build up a set of associations. This approach came crashing against my time constraint and instead I found myself rushing from spot to spot, hurriedly jotting down the most immediate of impressions like some twisted impersonation of a tourist. In any event, here follows what I managed to scrape together.
Chords of Canada
Another coursework-motivated post. The task is to find three examples each of Design, Illustration, and Art from my country of origin - Canada. These should be interesting and relevant to me and to Canada. Being not particularly well tuned in to art - especially that which might be considered culturally relevant - nor being in touch necessarily with Canadian culture, I found the task a bit of a challenge. In any event, here follows my attempt.
Pick 10: Images of Interest
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